Grant funding goes toward preserving history of site of former Japanese internment camp

The National Park Service announced this week that the former La Tuna Canyon Detention Station, used for Japanese internment during World War II, will be one of the recipients of grant funding aimed at preserving the site’s history.

Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were imprisoned by the federal government.

What is now the Verdugo Hills Golf Course, the site was — about 70 years ago — the La Tuna Civilian Conservation Corps Camp. It was later converted into a detention center, which could house up to 300 people at a time. The center was closed in 1943.

While the camp was open, about 2,560 people were processed, Lloyd Hitt, co-chair of the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, told the Glendale News-Press in 2012.

According to his data gathering, 75% of the detainees were of Japanese descent, with Italians and Germans making up the rest.

“As stewards of our nation’s history, the National Park Service recognizes the importance of preserving these confinement sites,” said Jonathan Jarvis, the agency’s director, in a statement. “These grants help us share valuable lessons on the fragility of our constitutional rights and ensure the experiences of those who were incarcerated are not forgotten.”

Part of the $2.8 million grant will go to help develop a traveling exhibition to tell the detention center’s story.

The exhibit will feature biographies of some of the detainees and video interviews with children who lived there, said Victoria Stauffenberg, a spokeswoman for the park service.

There will also be a diorama to present a 3-D perspective of the detention center, she said.

“We are very grateful that we have been recognized by the National Park Service because we feel very strongly this is a story that needs to be told,” said Nancy Oda, president of the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, which is putting the exhibit together. “There’s very little known about it, even in the community where it lies.”

She said the coalition will spend a year in the planning phase followed by a year of putting the exhibit together.

The detention center was granted historic monument status by the Los Angeles City Council in 2013.

After that, the housing developer who owns the property filed a lawsuit challenging the designation.